There is a crack in everything
by Kaesteranya
Summary: My set of flash fiction pieces and drabbles for Hibari Kyouya & Chrome Dukuro - most are introspective and sad in nature, with dashes of fluff. Occasionally hints at D18 or 6996 in the past.
1. There is a crack in everything

**There is a crack in everything (that's how the light gets in).**

_Set sometime in the future – call it a possibility, of sorts. (__Maybe you could look at it as a justification of one of my favorite possible pairings in this series?)__ Title's taken from the 31 Days theme for May 30, 2007. This goes out to Karen, one of my nakama-in-crime. MORE POWER TO 1896 YO!_

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She is up before him this time – a rare occasion, given the fact that he is a light sleeper and fundamentally inclined to trust nothing and no one. She finds herself curled up at his side, hair tossed over one shoulder, chin propped on one hand. She is content with watching him breathe: her fingers skim through his hair and occasionally linger for longer, to brush some stray bangs away from his face. Distance (and the occasional lack thereof) is what defines them now. The older foundations of their relationship – violence, confusion, deception and hate – had crumbled away years ago, partially out of need, partially out of inevitability.

His awakening is in that soft sigh and that knitting of eyebrows: she withdraws her hand, to better watch him re-engage their reality. She is no longer bothered by the fact that he frowns at her if she's the first thing he sees in the morning: it only means that he acknowledges her enough to be displeased by her presence.

"What time is it?"

"Too late to be productive."

She answers him in this way deliberately, because it is her way of measuring his mood. Their years together have showed her that his general disposition in a day never changes regardless of what happens between waking and sleeping. He only scoffs at her and rises from the bed; this tells her that he is in a good mood, or at least patient enough to humor her.

They eat breakfast at opposite ends of a long table, and only speak when necessary. They do not shower together, as most couples who are sleeping together may be inclined to do. They change in the same place but not at the same time; he passes away her time in their walk-in closet by smoking a cigarette, and she passes away his time by reading a book.

"…Ah. Wait a moment."

She walks up to him when he steps out, oblivious to his raised eyebrows. He holds still as she adjusts his collar, fixes his tie. They fit together without pressing together, with his eyes on her hands and her hands touching the fabric of his clothes, not his skin. Only one other person has ever gotten this close to him, and the end of that affair had nearly destroyed him. Being abandoned by that man, the one person who had managed to break his world apart and recreate it in his image, was a fate worse than death for a fighter like himself.

She remembered those times, and recalled, with a pang of sadness, the way he had looked to her, pacing down corridors like a caged animal, wild-eyed and lost and too proud to admit that he was broken. She could not, however, place that exact moment when he had finally crumbled and she had been there: an accident, born out of an unhealthy fixation with old enemies and past regrets. Their story from that point on became a lesson in acceptance.

"There."

Their kiss is a brief brush of lips; there is more contact in the way her hands shift, slipping between his coat and shirt, moving across his chest than over his shoulders. He does not move to touch her back. He left his marks the other evening; that, for him, is enough.

They part ways in silence, taking separate cars, going in separate directions. It will be evening by the time they come together again, to strip off their clothes the way soldiers remove their armor and to study the battle scars – old and new, visible and invisible – on each other's skin through tongue and gaze and fingertips.


	2. The dovetailed solution of your heart

**Dovetailed solution of your heart**

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 8, 2007._

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At 7 4M, Chrome Dukuro walks through the stark corridors of the Foundation headquarters with a hand towel and a bottle. It is Monday; that means that Hibari should be at the virtual training hall, running through a simulation duel against himself. True enough, she finds him in the cupola, tonfa out, eyes sharp, breathing heavy. His chest is slick with the sweat that he must have been working up since three in the morning – the time she woke up only to feel him rise from their bed.

"You're in the way," he snaps, without so much as a glance in her direction; her entrance paused the program, and he hates interruptions.

"Good morning" is her simple reply. Chrome sets the towel and bottle down by the door and steps out.

At 10:22 AM, Chrome heads for the library with iced barley tea and a bowl of shoyu ramen. He is seated at his usual spot by the picture windows overlooking the armory, smoking, staring at a virtual model of the box he has been trying to track down along the South African coast. The ashtray is overflowing with cigarette butts.

"I didn't ask for food," he says, eyes never leaving the projection slowly spinning in the air in front of him.

"Tetsu told me that you skipped breakfast," Chrome returns. She sets the food down, whisks the ashtray off the desk. "I'll clean this for you."

He does not speak to her when she comes around from dumping the cigs and the ashes. She hears the clatter of chopsticks and clink of ice against ice as she leaves.

At 3:46 PM, Chrome quietly slips into a sitting room with walls bearing murals depicting cherry blossom groves and devastating battlefields – it is where Hibari entertains enemies and unpleasant acquaintances. To his credit, there is no outward indication of his irritation; she takes a moment out to watch him as he performs the tea ceremony, perfect to a fault, eyes hooded, lips pursed.

They exchange a single glance, enough for Chrome to know exactly what he wants her to do. She leaves and carries out his tasks to the dot, for he will expect everything to be ready when he needs to clean the room and dispose of the bodies.

At 8:19 PM, Chrome is standing in the doorway of Hibari's office, watching him through her one good eye as he readies himself to read the thousands of papers stacked up on his desk, his floor and just about every available surface in the area. She could say a lot of things, maybe remark on the shade of his skin and the darkened look in his eyes. She speaks of something else instead.

"I will inform Tetsu about preparing the next set of reports for you."

"You do that."

At 2:02 AM, Chrome returns to Hibari's office and finds half of the reports read and Hibari himself sprawled on the couch, fast asleep and using his own coat to cover his shoulders. She tugs the clipboard out of his grip, trades his coat for a real blanket, brushes the hair off his forehead just long enough to kiss him and quietly leaves the room.


	3. The first frost

**The first frost.**

_This was written for the word prompt "ice" over at the KHR Fic Meme; the title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 30, 2007. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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Her skin is cold, chilled by the air of the snow storm they just stepped out of. She has, however, always been cool to touch – it is the one thing that remains steadfast and unchanging over the strange and sometimes unfortunate(?) circumstances behind each and every one of their encounters. He makes it his goal to warm her skin, to have it come alive under his touch. He makes it a point to steal the air from her lungs, to obstruct her line of vision with the image of him, to mark her not as _that_ one's, but as his own.

He is possessive and jealous and demanding and she indulges him, unfolding herself beneath his touch, letting him drag sounds of pain/pleasure/need from her lips the way a child would rip petals from a flower. He always comes to her brimming with murderous desire and killing intent; she knows this, and she spreads herself before him like an offering. She believes, after all, that she is a vessel, and a vessel is a means to an end. She completes herself, then, by letting him inside.

In the weird gray of the morning after, he is the first up and she is left lying tangled in the sheets, watching him move about through her one good eye. She lifts her arm once he lingers close enough, fingers tracing his elbow. He kisses the pulse on her wrist, bites the tender skin between her pointer finger and thumb. They leave the apartment at different times, and in perfect silence. It will be another few weeks before they come together again, leaving time for the frost of longing to creep over her skin.


	4. Typhoon generation

**Typhoon generation.**

_This was written for the word prompt "hush" over at the KHR Fic Meme; the title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 13, 2007. Special thanks to Nikki for doing the REAL archiving for all of us~_

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It comes with the strange predictability of the tides: in and out, backwards and forwards, washing the dregs up, dragging the good things under. It hits Hibari Kyouya when he least expects it, because he refuses to believe that it's tearing him apart. Chrome Dokuro is, however, well-versed now in watching for storms. She reads the signals, and is always ready to catch him.

There is a storm now, both literal and figurative, up in the skies and within Hibari's head. She is taking refuge under the feeble shade of a bus stop, hand clutching the handle of her umbrella, squinting out into the curtains of rain ripping through the premature darkness of the afternoon, watching Hibari stumble through them, head low, one foot in front of the other. _His eyes are dead_: it's the first thing she notices the moment he's close enough. They have been dead since Dino Cavallone broke his heart with two words and a beautiful smile.

Five years later and Chrome is still picking up the pieces, and pulling the splinters out of Hibari's hands.

She meets him midway, drags him inside the tiny corner of peace she's made out of a lighted bus stop and the warmth of her arms. He's been chilled to the bone and maybe a little beyond that, in a place she's never going to be able to reach no matter how much she offers herself up to him, in dark and quiet places, on her bed and sometimes on his.

His eyes are dead, and his lips quiver on the brink of speaking, saying something. She puts one finger over them, kisses his cheek, smiles again. She sits him down on the bench, pulls a towel out of thin air to pad him down just enough to ward off anything but the common cold and maybe a fever. He doesn't say a word. Her gestures tell him that everything will be all right.

(They both know that she is lying.)


End file.
